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Joined:
October 2004
Posts: 48
Location: State College, PA | Howdy, glad to meet you!
Sorry for the cross post - please ignore my post in For Sale. Meant to post here.
Have a 1111-1 (serial 13911). It's a war veteran. Been mine since 1979 - went with me to all kinds of strange places and survived. Then, like the combat vet who makes it through two tours only to come home and get hit by a AMC Gremlin, about six years ago, my guitar came into rather sudden contact with a hardwood floor. Made a terrible TWANG and the head broke clean off the neck. Disheartened, I put it away and didn't look at it for a long time. Then, two weeks ago, late one night, I thought about it, pulled it out and affected a truly crude, but structurally reasonable, repair with epoxy and clamping. I've been rediscovering its sound which, I believe has become, if possible, even better. It's got some scars - but I believe I'll keep it for life.
Now my interest has awakened toward bringing another Ovation into the house - mostly for home recording and possibly performance, if I get the rest of my chops back and anyone manages to roust me out.
Been a long time since I've looked. Assuming I steer clear of plywood, that leaves the solid top Ovations. I've got many questions.
Could I be happy with a mid-depth or even shallow bowl? (remembering that I've got the war vet for sitting at home)
Sound holes - could someone describe (if it's even a valid question) how the elites' multiple sound holes sound compared to a singler big round hole on the legends? That is, all other things being equal (and I know they're not), can you describe the difference in sound between a mid or deep bowl elite and a mid or deep legend?
Well - that's more than enough for now -
Thanks all - more sooner or later -
Michael |
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Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13997
Location: Upper Left USA | Welcome Michael!
Maybe we can even up with some of the Pauls now.
I love the story and I understand the attachment to your Veteran. To answer your questions correctly via a keyboard will only leave you with more questions. You need to get your hands on some of the models available and decide what will work for you!
You don't list a location, and I understand the need for privacy, but you could make board friends in your area and have jam sessions and instrument "tasting".
I enjoy my 30 years of diversity collection of various flavors of ice cream. Especially the 1112! :D |
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Joined:
May 2004
Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | As the leader of the Peanut Gallery, I'd just like to say, .
Er, ok, maybe someone should translate... |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Welcome Howdy, Enjoy the ice cream! |
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Joined:
October 2004
Posts: 48
Location: State College, PA | Thanks for the replies -
Actually, I think I was the second or third owner of this 1111-1. I knew the previous owner - he and I were in the same town. Somewhere in the 70's I saw him performing with this instrument. It later came into the inventory of the local shop, at which I was teaching guitar.
Here's some of the rest of the story:
The owner of this shop had gone to the NAMM show - it was in Chicago that year - and this was 1978, I believe. At that NAMM, Jean Claude Larrivee made a big splash - he brought three instruments to the show, and the owner of the local shop brought home two of them. I bought one of them and kept it for some time.
Always had the feeling that I was less the "owner" of that instrument than its steward for a while.
As things evolved, I moved to Alaska in March 1980. Something in me said that this was no place to bring the Larrivee - so I passed it back to the shop owner who, in exchange, gave me a new (and somewhat unusual) Gretsch Chet Atkins Super Axe (sealed hollow body w/ active electronics), a Randall amp, and the Ovation 1111-1.
Of these, the amp and the 1111-1 are still with me, having survived all the vagaries, twists and turns that followed. I lived in Alaska for fourteen years and have many tales to tell. I hope the Larrivee is in good hands. The 1111-1 may yet prove to be.
In the present day, there's a convergence of digital recording, MIDI, an on-hand Yamaha S80, the now up-and-about Veteran 1111-1, and all kinds of toys on the market that were unheard of in my analog past.
So - I need an acoustic that sounds enormous. The 1111-1 is really close to what I hear - but I'd like to be able to record without a mic (which is to say, I don't want to buy a mic that'll be up to the job - rather put $$$ into a guitar I can plug in directly - less tricky acoustically at home, etc).
I'm intrigued by the shallow body elites - but I have the feeling that if the guitar really has to sound the way I'm dreaming, than I need a big, deep bowl - but with a pickup.
So - that's chapter two.
Again - thanks for the replies - good to find you all - thanks for reading, and best wishes -
Michael |
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Joined:
November 2002
Posts: 3666
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | If cosmetics aren't an issue, retrofit the Old Warrior with a recent model preamp. Ovation makes some of the best. I'm not sure who's making them, but there's some preamp that has individual sensors for each string. Pretty spiffy, Maynard! |
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Joined:
May 2004
Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | My old Elite with the OP24 sounds just fine acoustically, but even better plugged in. I know it doesn't have all the fancy adjustments and accoutrements of the OP-PRO, but I can get anything from warm and woody to bright and jangly out of it with just those three sliders. And that's going into a consumer-grade recorder.
How do you like the S80? I have the Motif8 and love the action on the keys, closest thing I've felt to 'real' keyboard action without having a cast iron frame. I'm not sure if they used the same keybed in the S80 as they have in the S90/Motif series, but I dig mine. |
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Joined:
October 2004
Posts: 48
Location: State College, PA | The S80 is amazing. Mind, I spent six happy weeks back in 1975 with a key to my college's electronic music studio that housed, at the time, a Moog synthesizer - the real deal - really just racks of associated gizmology: voltage controlled oscilators, envelope generators, various kinds of filters, and of course, patch bays. The keyboard was really just a variable voltage device. You *could* if you wanted, painstakingly set & tweak everything up to have the keys correspond to conventional tuning (half steps, etc). Or, you could assign its varible voltage output to drive almost any other part of the rack full of devices.
There were a couple of Revoxes for layering tracks.
So I spent six happy weeks blowing out windows and putting poor helpless speakers through mechanical stresses that had not been envisioned in their design parameters.
Anyway - with that as the backdrop, the S80 was a revelation - bought it so our son could take piano lessons - so 80 keys and as close to a real piano keyboard as possible were important.
The S80 has all the components of a standard, mechanical keyboard - the hammers, levers, etc - just no strings. I think it's pretty similar to the Motif - has expansion slots etc, but it's a performance synth rather than a compositon work station - so while it can be driven by a sequencer and has storage for sequences, it has no onboard midi editor of its own. I drive it with a computer via USB interface.
After looking around, I just couldn't bring myself to lay down $$$ for a "digital piano" - "Hmmph," says I, "it's just a crippled synth!"
So that made it easy. Now the son's taking trombone instead, but I'm taking piano lessons (!). They have special books - "Keyboard Musician for the Old Duffer." - wonderful stuff.
Truth be told, I'm sneaking a little time in playing with some of the non-piano samples (the Yamaha sample banks are great). There's a fine string bass, a decent finger-picked bass, a slightly smarmy fretless bass (a little too Jaco for everyday use), and a possibly useful flatpicked bass. There are tons of percussion instruments - those that sound synthetic, but better, those that don't.
I used to lay down tracks with a 4 track tascam, an Ampex 602-2 and an Ampex AG-500. I direct-plugged electric guitars & bass, used a mic for acoustics, and banged on anything handy to add a little percussion.
Now the idea of using computer-based recording with a hardware interface to build up tracks combining guitar(s) direct-plugged through a midi-drivable mixer/interface, supplemented by sequenced synth-based percussion & bass - well, this sounds like LOTS of fun.
Thanks for reading and best wishes -
Michael |
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Howdy Duty
